The following letter was sent to the Barrier Bulletin the local newspaper on Great Barrier Island and was published in April. I wrote it because a sort of moral panic, in part drummed-up by...
Just one week after the imposition of the council’s regressive fuel tax, more bed taxes and a bunch of new targeted rates, came the disclosure in the NZ Herald that mayor Phil Goff has...
It’s fair to say that the democratic element of our society has been weakened in recent years, a by-product of the neoliberal revolution that has swept across the western world. Unfortunately this revolution didn’t...
It’s certainly proving to be a Winter of Discontent within the Auckland Council. It’s this discontent that was behind the recent letter expressing ‘strong dissatisfaction’ with the ‘secretive and non-inclusive’ leadership style of Mayor...
I was as intrigued as most when Transport Minister Phil Twyford announced the NZ Superannuation Fund’s interest in building, owning and operating the Minister’s favoured light rail project – costed provisionally at $6bn for...
Well, thank goodness for David Parker. By his stepping in to stop another Auckland Council/CCO planning debacle the Minister for the Environment, Attorney-General etc, etc, has achieved a much better outcome for the waterfront...
On this day the people of New Zealand and Australia gather as they have since the first Anzac Day, to commemorate the fallen and honour those men and women who have served in all...
‘Consultation Frenzy’, my friend Luke Niue calls it. Over the past four weeks Auckland Council has been consulting on the 2018-2028 Long Term Plan – along with a stack of other plans. The Long...
Early on Waitangi Day morning a small group of inner city residents, mainly from Grafton, Parnell and Arch Hill but even from as far afield as Ponsonby and Grey Lynn, as they had the...
In response to my December Ponsonby News column, I received from ratepayer Dave Lyons the following email. It was so compelling I thought I should share it. “ …I am a Westmere resident and...
